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NFC: Re: alligators, tigers, sharks and bears- oh my
You are right. This is because it is easy to
get kids excited about dangerous animals. Tell me you don't get excited
when you see Steve Irwin (aka "Crocodile Hunter") casually pick up a highly
venemous snake, or wrassle with a big saltwater croc.
Marty Stauffer's show was IMHO a better class
of wildlife documentary. His films were shot just far enough away that he
didn't really alter the behavior of the wildlife around him. The new breed
of wildlife show personalities (I use that word quite intentionally) are all
offshoots of the Steve Irwin style, where you are very hands-on with the animal
and not really showing what the animal does in the wild. I think it is a
more lazy format of filming because they don't take days to catch a shot of
such-and-such an animal capturing its prey. They just sort of walk out in
the wilderness and grab whatever it is they see. Really hard to apply that
style to fishes, IMHO. Besides, Steve Irwin tackling a wild sunfish
wouldn't make for good ratings.
But you raise a good point. I wonder how much
it would cost to produce such a show. Not a series, mind you. But
maybe a two or three part mini-series. Might this be a good use of NFC
funds? I have no idea what we've got "banked" right now but I could
see value in producing a native fish mini-series and marketing it to PBS
stations and DVD/VHS consumers. Buy an underwater camera, some tapes, and
ship the camera back and forth to different NFC volunteers who will do the
filming. The tapes get shipped off either to a qualified volunteer (if we
have one) or to a professional producer who would splice them together.
Get someone with a pleasant voice to do the voiceovers.
Some of the variables:
* Does the NFC have much money in the bank?
If not, are members willing to pony up for this?
* How much does underwater video camera
cost?
* Do we have someone in our midst who is qualified
to handle post-filming production work? If not, how much would it cost to
farm this out?
* Do we have enough volunteers across the country
to make this work? I would imagine most of the volunteer work would have
to be in the filming part of the production.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 1:48
PM
Subject: NFC: alligators, tigers, sharks
and bears- oh my
Hey
guys,
ever notice on all the cable channels that document and
profile animals, the
above mentioned animals are about the only ones ever
featured.
NO NATIVE FISH--EVER!!
Okay, almost never. They do profile
salmon (usually during a grizzly bear
study) And rarely, when they profile
otter, they show some good underwater
fish footage. But where are
the pike, sturgen, catfish, darters, and
sunfish-are they too frigging
hard to film or something?
Please, Discovery channel -do the rest of the
animal kingdom justice, cover
different kinds of animals. Til then I know
I'm tuning out.
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